Don’t get on her bad side.
Coach Addie is a baller.
She ate and left no crumbs just by waking up this morning.
But every one of thoseshe will flay you alivestatements is said with utter reverence and generally followed withif she ever quits, none of us will be able to bat right again.
Orshe really got me through a tough time last season.
OrI didn’t know it when she first started on the team, but she gives good advice if you just ask.
Every time, I nod or cringe or mutter complaints with them, whatever seems appropriate, as if I’ve never met her before.
As if I’ve never seen her shake her ponytail out and sigh in relief as she scrubs her fingernails over her scalp. “Relieving the tension,” she said once.
As if she didn’t fall asleep on my shoulder still mumble-singing along to one of the songs inPitch Perfecton one of our early dates when she’d just gotten home from a three-week road trip right after training camp started for me.
As if she hadn’t laughed until she cried while telling me the story of Brooks Elliott showing up for on-field batting practice once with a Fireballs cape draped around his shoulders, wearinga thong over the outside of his pants prominently featuring their old mascot stretched across his cup. “I couldn’t let them see me crack, or they would’ve known they could push me around,” she’d said.
Or something to that effect.
I know this woman’s soft side.
But that’s not the side she’s giving me now.
Now I get why she’s sometimes calledthe marble statue.
She’s not fucking around. She’s all business. And that business is getting rid of me.
I hold up my hands in surrender even though I feel like an ass. “Great. You’ve got this. Glad to be useless again.”
I expect more glaring. Foot stomping. Eye rolling.
Instead, a muscle ticks in her jaw and her eyes take on a shine.
“Yo, puckboy, that’s an illegal parking job,” a familiar voice says from the doorway. “This guy causing you headaches, Coach Addie? Want me to have one of my security guards take him down?”
Addie jerks her attention to the door and starts toward it. “Hello, Cooper. Nice baby.”
Her pace increases as she strides the last few steps, supporting her arm with the other one as she approaches the dark-haired, newly-retired baseball player wearing a baby in a sling at the employee door.
“The best baby,” Cooper replies with a grin, rubbing his large hand over the baby’s fine dark hair. She’s nestled against his chest. “She gets it from her mom. What are you two doing here together?”
“Long story,” Addie says before I can answer. “Thank you for holding the door.”
“You find a dress?”
“The saleslady got food poisoning and couldn’t help me today.”
That much is true.
The woman running the shop finally appeared as we were leaving the dressing room with Addie back in her normal clothes. The woman had looked like death. Pale, sweating, and weak. She apologized and said she was going to have to close for the rest of the day.
We waited until someone picked her up before I drove Addie here.
Cooper looks at me, then at Addie, who’s past him now and is disappearing inside, and then back at me. “Why are you here, and what did you do to piss off Coach Addie?”
“Long story.” Might as well stick with what Addie said. I nod to Cooper’s chest. “Cute baby.”
